Paul Auster
Paul Benjamin Auster is a renowned and laureate North-American author. Born on the 3rd February 1947 in Newark, in the state of New Jersey, Auster comes from a middle class Jewish family. It was in his early teens that the future writer began to show his interest towards literature, being an avid consumer of several classical authors, such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka or Marcel Proust, among others. His interest in literature along with the living and experiences he had in New York City formed the basis for what would become one of the greatest contemporary writers.
In 1970 Paul Auster finished his degree in Columbia University and moved to Paris, where he worked as a translator a few years. In 1974, Paul Auster returned to the United States of America, and initiated his career as a writer, with the publication of several essays, poems and articles for the press. However, it was only in 1987 when Auster reached success among the public and specialized critics, with the publication of “The New York Trilogy”.
This best-seller was followed by many others successful and acclaimed books, such as “Moon Palace”, “The Book of Illusions”, “The Brooklyn Follies” or “Sunset Park”, which reinforced his position has one of the most important contemporary writers and granted him several international awards.
Auster’s writing is centered in philosophical topics, such as questioning the human existence and the identity, the apparent reality in which mankind lives, paradoxes and contradictions of the modern world, or strange coincidences, being New York City the preferred location for the development of almost all his narratives.
Besides being a fiction writer, Paul Auster also wrote some biographies, and he seldom works in the movie industry, either has a screenwriter, producer, actor or director. “Smoke” his probably his most famous work in cinema, which was co-directed by Auster and Wayne Wang; Auster was also the screenwriter of the movie, based on his tale “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story”.
Paul Auster’s first marriage was with the also writer Lydia Davis, with whom he had his first son, Daniel. After the divorce, Auster married again, this time with the fellow author Siri Hustvetd, the mother of his daughter Sophie.
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